Call for Papers: 2008 AAG Meeting, Boston, April 15-19
Geographies of Sovereignty
Organised by Fiona McConnell (Queen Mary, University of London)
Sovereignty is increasingly being conceptualised as both historically
contingent, and socially and culturally constructed. These approaches
have enabled the conceptual disentangling of sovereignty, territory
and statehood, and have opened up theoretical possibilities for
extra-territorial sovereign polities, spaces of sovereign exception
and multiple, overlapping sovereignties. Rather than focusing on
abstract, theoretical discussions regarding the (changing) nature of
sovereignty, this session aims to explore examples of how sovereignty
is played out on the ground through performance, practice and
materiality, the moments and places where sovereignty can be located,
and how we can go about researching this ambiguous
institution/discourse/set of practices. This session will focus on
both elite constructions of sovereignty and everyday narratives, and
will not deal exclusively with state sovereignty - examples of de
facto rather than necessarily de jure sovereignty are particularly
welcomed.
Possible questions to be addressed include but are in no way restricted to:
o What methodologies are appropriate for researching sovereignty as
socially and culturally constructed?
o Which practices and performances construct, reproduce, reconstruct
and deconstruct sovereignty, and what is the relationship between
dramatic spectacles, their reception, and mundane practices?
o In which sites can sovereignty can be located and observed, and how
can the researcher ?be there??
o What are the (fleeting) moments when sovereignty is realised, and
can/ should they be captured?
o How can overlapping and multiple sovereignties be researched and
mapped, and how can sovereignty be investigated at different scales?
o How are relationships of mutual recognition enacted and recorded?
o Echoing calls for a (re)materialisation of the state, how can a
material approach to sovereignty be realised?
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Fiona McConnell
at [log in to unmask] by 10th October.
Further details on the paper requirements and registration for the AAG
meeting are at http://aag.org/annualmeetings/2008/index.htm
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Fiona McConnell (PhD Student: Governments-in-exile)
Department of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road
London
E1 4NS
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Mobile: 07989 748375
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